The Canadian biometrics company Nymi, working with TD Bank Group and MasterCard, says it’s completed the first wearable credit card transaction authenticated by the user’s heartbeat.
Nymi’s dedicated payments authentication wristband executes a payment when held up to a point of sale terminal that accepts MasterCard. The band contains an NXP near field communication (NFC) chip to communicate with any terminal that supports contactless Tap & Go technology. To prove that the wearer is indeed the MasterCard account holder, the band reads the wearer’s unique heartbeat pattern.
Nymi says the first live payment was made as part of a Canadian pilot on Friday, July 10, as seen here:
Event
AI Unleashed
An exclusive invite-only evening of insights and networking, designed for senior enterprise executives overseeing data stacks and strategies.
The Nymi biometric technology could be built into existing smartwatches and fitness trackers to remove steps from the payment process and cut down on fraud risk.
Nymi says more banks will participate in the pilot program later this year.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings.
